Procrastination

I’m not big on commitments, but when I resolve to do something, I do generally stick to it. It seems though, that I’m going through a procrastination phase (again). Procrastination isn’t something new to me at all! Procrastination is a fascinating thing actually – and I might just build an entire 500 page website about it. (Notice the word “might” in that sentence? That’s real procrastinator’s language!) I’ve caught myself once again!

Okay, so here I am, after having made a decision to stop the procrastination phase immediately!

I have my site structure in place – everything is working, but I do still want to tweak some things. I think the reason the procrastination started was because I’m sitting with what I feel is a chicken and egg syndrome. I need people to visit the site (it’s not fully live yet so I don’t want them to visit just yet in any event, but I’m referring to the next step in the process).In order to get people to visit the site and stay, they need to feel that there is a community of sorts building. I suppose this is just a matter of releasing the site and getting the word out there. The thing is, when I visit a site and the forum is dead, it makes me wonder why!

Interestingly, as I write this down it doesn’t seem to be such a problem, but it’s been mulling around in my head, as a major problem. I’ll tackle it as I go along and not use it as a reason to procrastinate.

The next concern I am facing is how to go about handling business listings – legally. Do people need to approve that I list their business on my site? I know that most businesses will have no problem being listed -any potential source of revenue for a business is a positive thing. The potential problem is that I have included a rating system, where users of any service / company, can rate the company. This is where I anticipate a potential problem. A company who gets a negative review might just decide to take some kind of legal action seeing as they didn’t give me permission to list their business.

I need to investigate this fully and get some peace of mind before I continue.

I spent some time this week making greeting cards, and spring cleaning. Spring cleaning is always symbolic for me and almost a ritual in a sense. It gets rid of the cobwebs in the spirit, and unclutters the mind too!

So, here I am the house has been spring cleaned, and so have I!

The journey continues!

I won!

Yes, I have banished the little Red x's for good now, and I didn't even resort to Yahooing behind Google's back.

Sheesh, it had nothing to do with my web designing skills (or lack thereof) whatsoever. Anyhow, that glitch is a thing of the past, and my site is starting to look like something now. It's not going to be much longer now, maybe a week,and my first proper site, with javascript, php and a database will be up and running.

I've "stolen" lots of ideas from all over the place so, it's not entirely 100% my own from start to finish, but I've learned a lot in the process.

This site isn't going to make me money - maybe a couple of bob here and there, and maybe I'll decide to sell some advertising space in the future, but for now, it's my learning curve site, which is also something of a community service.

I've been writing a little more, and I'm keeping to my committment to do two posts a week on here too! (I think! :-)) Things are definitely moving forward!

It's quite something working from home. I don't need any discipline to work as such - not at this stage - because I just love all that I'm doing and find myself having to pull myself away from my pc, in order to do other things.

After the little Red X's incident, I decided to take a couple of days away form the computer totally, so that I could do some of those other things I've been wanting to, and meaning to do - like redecorate my lounge, and the bathroom. (Not a major makeover by any means, but fun and everything looks so much better now).

The lounge is constantly the victim of my pets. I'm slowly but surely getting it more pet proof, but I'm sure in a short while, the dog will have chewed some of my new cushions! My female dog has had something of a love affair with one of the cushions, which has now been tossed! I'm sincerely hoping that she doesn't fall in love with any of the new cushions!

I'm also looking foward to putting up the Christmas tree - but have decided to wait!

One of the great things about working from home is that I even managed to do some Christmas shopping and it's only November!!! I'm usually not even thinking about Christmas yet, and working like crazy to meet deadlines and tie up things for the end of year.

I am definitely finding every reason to make sure that I get everything up and running according to plan!

I hate litte red x's!

So there I was, merrily going along with all my newly acquired skills - sourcing and creating nice little jpegs, gifs, and pngs for the menus and things – it’s quite time consuming all this, especially while you’re still learning.

I’m finally done with my business listing page. For me, when I upload a page, it’s like the moment of truth is about to appear before my eyes. I am always so filled with anticipation as to whether my creation is going to come alive, or will I just see - “parse error on line 600.. blah blah blah....”

The moment of truth for my business listing page arrives – disappointingly, little red x’s appear all over the page, but I'm a positive soul! “That should be easily fixed,” I tell myself, “I must have used the incorrect path”. Most importantly, I want to know whether the database functions are working and whether I can search, and whether people can list. (That’s the hard part getting all that working!) Some testing reveals all is working pretty much as planned. I’m ecstatic!

The little red-x’s should be sorted out in a jiffy. Fifty cups of coffee, maybe 100 cigarettes, and a few skipped, meal –times, later – little red x’s still adorn the pages.

Hellllppppp! Google, I thought you were my friend – why aren’t you helping me find the answers to this one! If you don’t watch out I’m going to Yahoo behind your back! Yip, that is how desperate I am!

Last night I was worn out and felt defeated by the little red x’s. Today I start afresh!I am going to give myself a break from those little red x’s but when they least expect it, I am going to pounce! I’ll conquer the secret code and the business listing page will be saved!

Sigh... I hope it’s soon though!

So much to learn...

Once again, learning is at an all time high. I’m getting to grips with html, CSS, php, MySQL Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and all sorts of other things, I didn’t even know existed a couple of months ago. It’s pretty exciting most of the time, but I’ve had some moments of panic, when I’ve wondered if I’ll ever get my head around all this stuff!

Then I look back at what I’ve learned so far and how some of those concepts which I first perceived as difficult are now understood. Things are getting easier, but I am well aware of how much I still need to learn if I want to make a career out of this. I’m still positive though.

What’s wonderful about the web is that there are so many people willing to share what they’ve learned, and what they know. I’d say that Google is pretty much my best friend at this moment – always there for me, prodding me in the right direction in order to get answers to my questions. You gotta just love it!

I hope that when it’s time to do all the search engine optimization stuff, that I still love Google after that!

SiteBuildIt! Review

The journey continues - excitedly!

I know that if I want to have a successful website, and a successful blog, I am going to have to write regularly. I love writing, but it seems like I never get around to writing in my blog. That's definitely going to change. From now on, it is two posts a week - minimum.

The problem with not writing regularly is that I'm not able to really share everything I have been doing. One of the reasons I started this blog is to share the journey and all that I learn along the way. The learning is happening ever so quickly now.

I mentioned previously that I had signed up for a web-hosting / online business package. I learned a lot during the trial period, but decided to go another route. The site concept I came up with wasn't really suited to the web building tools they have available. No MySQL database was available, and you have to sign up with another webhosting service to host the database, just to accommodate a forum. It was very disappointing, but I did enjoy everything else about their services. The business aspect is great, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend signing up.

They offer a 30 day, no questions asked, money back guarantee, and they delivered on this. The refund reflected in my bank account within a week of the request for the refund. Considering that it was an international transfer as well, I thought that was pretty good service. Ken Evoy, the site owner, lives by his word to over deliver.

The drop in the Rand / Dollar exchange rate worked in my favour here, so I even made a few bucks. I was refunded more in Rands that what I paid! If I waited a little longer to request the refund, I could have scored even more! I'm not complaining though!

I would definitely recommend SiteBuildIt! knowing that the refund process worked well. 30 days is a lot of time to get to grips with the way things work, and understand the services they offer, and to make a decision as to whether their services meet your needs.

I've now signed up with a regular web hosting service, and will provde a review of their services too. So far, Hostgator has also delivered on their service.

So, I'll most probably sign up for both these affiliate programs soon.

As for life outside of the fast lane - It's great! I don't want to go back there at all. It makes me more determined to make my online journey work!

I feel really fortunate to even have this type of opportunity, and am going to make the best of it.

One step forward

It’s a whole new day, and whole new month. I always enjoy new beginnings, no matter how small they are, and the first day of each month is no exception.

Since leaving employment, so much has happened, and as exciting as my new venture is, there have been a few daunting moments. “It’s all part of the journey.” I tell myself regularly.

I’m battling to find the exact angle I want to take for my first website, but I have finally decided on a web hosting service, and so far, so good.

I’m doing research about my niche and the various options I have, and this web hosting package provides plenty tools and other resources. I’ve spent quite a bit of time getting to grips with it all, and slowly but surely, it’s all coming together.

I don’t want to mention names just yet, I’d rather test it all out for myself first. But, I am impressed so far. It’s just so much more than a web-hosting package though! It also comes at a bit of a premium, but as I go along the processes they have set out for each new website owner, I’m feeling more and more confident that it’s worth every cent.

They also have an affiliate program, which I will make use of, provided of course, I am happy with the overall service and experience I have. It’s still too early for me to make that call with a clear conscience.

I’m also testing out the google adsense program – as you can see by the google ads listed. So far I have made some money but it’s slow going. Of course, I have no REAL traffic as yet, but it will be different in time. More importantly I am learning how this all works and how it all comes together.

It will hopefully be a resource to others some time in the future.

Research and Spring

It’s been quite some time since I posted my first blog. The first post set my intention, but I was pretty clueless about how I was going to set about doing it all. I didn’t want to write (on my blog) everyday and have nobody read it all. There would be no point in that!

Instead, I have been doing some other writing, something that maybe I can publish somewhere along the line – I’ll keep going with that. I’ve also spent a lot of time researching how people make money on the internet. There is a lot of free information out there, some of it brilliant and insightful - some of it is regurgitated tripe.

There is definitely no shortage of pyramid type get rich quick schemes, and some of those ads and articles are tempting indeed. On further investigation though, you realise that most of them are about making money out of people wanting to make money. I don’t want to ask anyone for their money in order for them to make more money - that just isn’t part of my moral code.
I’ve spent numerous hours investigating affiliate programs and there are legitimate programs out there -some need an investment up front, and others are free. I’m in the process of testing some these and will be sure to report back on those I find effective.

In the meantime though, I am getting quite used to a life where I no longer wake up to an alarm every morning, where I no longer dread the routine of entering the office basement parking, swiping my access card, and forcing myself to smile.

Instead, I have spent two days gardening and enjoying the spring time.

Needs, Wants, Desires ...

Today I enter the world of blogging. I’ve wanted to do it for some time, but I was never convinced that anyone would actually read my blog. I also wasn’t sure that what I had to offer would be of any interest to anyone. How knowledge changes things!

I’ve passed a crossroad in my life and made the decision to give up the corporate world of hypocrisy, steel egos, conflicts of interests, and profits, profits and more profits. In a moment of pure clarity (some might call it insanity), I quit my job.

As I quit the daily run-in with hypocrisy, egos and conflicts, I also quit getting that monthly salary which enables my creative outlets and hobbies. Like most of us in this world, “I need” but more importantly I also “want” and then even more importantly, I “desire”.

My needs are no different from anyone's needs really. We need food, shelter, clothing, and this all costs money. What I want though is 'lots of money' - not 'high flying, millionaire lots’ - but enough of it to enjoy some of those life’s pleasures that extra money can buy. Above all this though, is my desire to write and to see other people achieve success – whatever that success might mean to them. And this is where this blog comes in.

Today, I start my adventure into using the web as a tool to to achieve those needs, wants and desires, and as I go along, I will share my progress.

It’s one day at time, from NOW!